Guy Hands plotting £1.3bn sale of Italian solar power firm

I am City A.M.'s news editor. I love interviewing entrepreneurs, carrying out investigations through freedom of information requests and covering all the latest goings on in the world's great city, London. I started my career as an intern at LondonLovesBusiness.com in 2011 and became editor in 2015. I joined City A.M. as deputy night editor in July 2016.

In June last year, Terra Firma dropped a £1.5bn lawsuit against Citi over the acquisition of EMI. It is reported that Guy took a €200m (£168m) hit to his personal fortune as a result of the deal. The Terra Firma boss alleged that Citi misled him into overpaying for the music publisher in 2007.

Hands told City A.M. earlier this month he has "moved on" from the mult-million-pound loss.

The private equity tycoon is weighing up more takeover prospects this year. Since 1994, Terra Firma has invested over €16bn in 34 businesses with an aggregate enterprise value of over €48bn. However, profits dropped to £1.84m in the 12 months to March 31, 2015 – the lowest figure since 2012.

Hands doesn’t blame this on Terra Firma’s profit dip but instead says he wants people with a “long-term view”.

“We have paid several hundred million in some very big bonuses to very talented people and they just left. One of them is running a farm and another is sailing around the world, which is all great but it doesn’t help me build the business," he said.